Quiz: Who was Dr Kotnis ? Why was Advani jailed ?

Chinese stamp commemorating Dr Kotnis.
The Readers’ Editor’s Office in The Hindu , perhaps, had thought Indians in general, especially the educated lot, of even this generation, would be familiar with our national heroes associated with recent events, needing no editorial padding to dress the report. But its assumption proved wrong, when a reader wrote on the same day (Aug 31,2006) on which a report had appeared in the paper

“Hu Jintao to visit India in November”, a reference made by Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Yuxion, on the occasion of the release of the book “My Life with Kotnis”(Dr D.S.Kotnis). A reader asked ( as the paper in its “corrections and clarifications” published in its report dated Sept 1) as who Dr D. S.Kotnis was .

Well, the Readers’ Editor did well in educating readers about Dr Kotnis, the biographies that have been published, the movies that were produced both in India and China, the commemorative stamps that were released by China on the 40th and 50th anniversaries of Kotnis in 1982 and 92, respectively, and the pride of place this doctor from the Southern Maharastra city of Solapur, finds in the Martyrs’ Memorial Park in a Chinese Province and he rightly remarks that no single Indian did more to bridge Indo-Chinese relations than Dr Dwarkanath Shantaram Kotnis

Besides these details The Hindu gave, I know biographies have also been published in Indian regional languages and the visits of Guo Quniglan (wife of Dr Kotnis ) to Solapur were prominently being featured in newspapers and I believe that a statue of Dr Kotnis has also been unveiled in his home town of Solapur.

Three years ago during the NDA Government at the Centre the then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, in the course of his speech at a religious convention arranged by the JSS Mahavidya Peeta in Mysore, referred to his being interned in Bangalore Jail during Emergency and Mr Advani thanked the people of Karnataka for their hospitality. After the function, as I was coming out of the Maidan, I noticed a fellow-journalist coming to meet me. My young friend , born on the eve of the lifting of the Emergency had a doubt . He asked me as to why Mr Advani had been detained in Jail and what crime did he commit. Like the journalist who filed his report on the President Hu Jintao’s visit, without mentioning as to who Dr Kotnis was, Mr Advani, in his speech, had not thought it necessary to explain as to how he came to be interned.
Well, it is for you to ponder over the two similar issues.